Spring = Hope

I can’t lie, it’s been so hard to pick up the laptop and start typing again. Sometimes it takes a bit to process what’s going on in life. There have been a lot of changes in my life, and also changes in how I respond to my everyday life. I can’t say that it’s always positive changes, although I do feel like it’s headed in the right direction. Navigating through life changes tends to put you in a tough spot at times. Change in general can be quite uncomfortable, especially for our human nature that likes predictability and comfortability. It makes me think about the current spring season we find ourselves here in the northeast. Spring isn’t really my favorite season of all time, but I can say it’s probably the most beautiful. After a long cold winter when everything is dead and there is no life to be found, spring comes around and offers a glimmer of hope. Plants and trees that were dead, start coming back to life and little by little the appearance starts to change. Let’s be real though, that change does not come without lots and lots of rain. I think we can all probably think back on moments in our life that look like the spring season. That is sort of where I find myself now, in the middle of a lot of rain, but also in the middle of a lot of hope.

My husband and I were having a conversation about faith and what it really means to have faith. I started to think about it and just ask myself difficult questions that would challenge the fact that I actually had faith. You see, in today's modern world the word faith is used often to talk about having positive thoughts towards something. Some may even mention a certain vibe, or energy that manifests what you want in life. I am not convinced that that’s the faith that scripture speaks of though. You see, to have faith in God is not to believe that what you want to happen in your life will happen, but it’s to believe that whatever does happen, God is in control and can use it for your good. Faith is so much more than what we can see manifest here physically on Earth. It actually has more to do with what happens with your heart when you live in complete surrender, knowing that this life is nothing but a glimpse of time compared to all eternity.

“ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” Hebrews 11:13

This is a hard but real truth: The outcome of faith is not always what you were having faith for. Read that again. This is a good thing though, hear me out. If the results in life were determined by how much faith we had or didn’t have, we would all be doomed. We are so fragile, skeptical, doubtful, and just human. God knew that and had a different plan for faith, and that was Jesus. As long as we just believed in his son, we would find eternal life in Him. Therefore faith isn’t to get me what I want, it’s to get me to God, which is so much better than we could’ve ever believed in or hoped for ourselves. And don’t get me wrong, God wants amazing things for us, more than we could ever dream of ourselves, but He would much rather have our heart. 

As changes in life occur, as they often do, I am reminded that if I place my faith in God and realize that he cares for me much more than anyone ever could, I can find rest and peace. My assurance isn’t based on what spring, summer, fall or winter brings me or doesn’t bring me. It is based on the fact that even when the seasons change, there is one thing that is constant in my life that never changes. God’s love, God’s kindness, and God’s goodness. He is in constant pursuit of each and everyone of us even when we can't see it or feel it. That’s why I have to remind myself that even when life isn’t going the way I predicted or would have liked, I have the best possible outcome at the end of it all.